


and baby makes five

by Siria



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Kid Fic, M/M, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-16
Updated: 2012-06-16
Packaged: 2017-11-07 21:57:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/435884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kono rolls her eyes. "What Jenna is trying to say is that we'd like to have a baby."</p>
            </blockquote>





	and baby makes five

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to sheafrotherdon and gyzym for betaing and cheerleading!

"I hope we're not intruding," Jenna says. "If you're busy, we can go." She's hanging back by the front door, one sandaled foot still resting on the threshold like she's anticipating Danny will tell her and Kono to get out of there—as if Judith Williams' son was raised to send away guests. His mom had always greeted people with coffee, gossip so detailed it'd put a special investigations unit to shame, and copious photos of the weddings and bar mitzvahs and first communions of distant cousins of whom Danny was only vaguely aware. If she senses that her son has failed to live up to her standards of hospitality, there'll be hell to pay, no matter how tired he is. 

"Hey, no, not at all!" Danny says, sweeping the stack of newspapers off the couch and dumping them on the coffee table. He gestures for Jenna and Kono to take a seat, catching as he does so the vaguely pissy look Steve shoots his way. Which, yes, okay, so Danny's been promising to recycle the newspapers for the past three days, but to be fair, for most of the past three days the two of them have been in the running-jumping-climbing-trees phase of an investigation, emphasis on the jumping (sub-category: off a cliff). Household chores have not been a priority, is what he's saying. "I just wasn't expecting to see you guys 'til tomorrow evening," he says as he sits in one of the armchairs.

Now that Atkinson's in custody, the coast's clear for going ahead with Malia's birthday party at Steve and Danny's tomorrow. The stretch of beach out back is small and rocky, but it's a lot more than anyone else on the team has; that, coupled with the lanai, makes Steve and Danny's the default location for team get-togethers. The whole gang's invited, and Danny had just been about to stretch out on the lanai for a quick nap before Steve inevitably chivvied him out the door and in the direction of Whole Foods to stock up on finger food and several pounds of both surf and turf.

"We'll be here tomorrow," Kono says. She and Jenna sit on the couch, pressed close together like the two of them are holding one another up. "We just had something we wanted to ask you guys in private."

Danny shoots a quick look over at Steve; Steve shrugs, arms folded across his chest. Clearly he has no more idea than Danny does.

"Did you guys elope?" Danny asks, spreading his hands wide. "Because if you eloped, neither Steve nor I can protect you from a Mrs. Kalakaua who didn't get a chance to dress up all fancy and take lots of photos. He's only got SEAL training, he's not qualified to deal with moms."

"Outside of my skill set," Steve agrees, poker-faced.

"Um, no," Jenna says, waggling the still-bare fingers of her left hand at them, an awkward expression on her face. "Still living in sin! We just wanted to ask you… that is, we've made a decision that…" She looks over at Kono. "I told you I should have written this down."

Kono rolls her eyes. "What Jenna is trying to say is that we'd like to have a baby."

Out of the corner of his eye, Danny sees Steve blink. It's a more restrained action than Danny would have given him credit for, but hey, Danny's busy trying to unscramble his brains, so. "Mazel tov?" he tries after a moment or two. "I mean, it's great that you guys feel you can tell us this—"

"We want Steve to be the sperm donor," Jenna blurts out, then claps her hand over her mouth in horror.

There's absolute silence in the living room for a moment before Kono says, wryly, "That could have gone better."

Danny doesn't disagree.

Steve, it turns out, goes a little weak at the knees when you spring something like this on him. As a technique for bringing down Navy SEALs it's effective, though Danny doesn't think it's one you can use more than once. He sits down on the arm of Danny's chair and says, jaw tight, "I'm going to need you to repeat that for me." If anything else were at issue here, Danny'd tease him for how obviously Steve falls back into military modes of functioning when he's stressed, when he's feeling wrong-footed, but not right now. He settles for resting a hand on Steve's knee while Kono talks.

"We've been talking about it for a while, and we think now's a good time. We've got the house, we've both got solid incomes and a little bit put away, and it feels right. The clinic suggested some donor banks we might want to use, but I didn't like the idea of not knowing who our baby's dad is, and Jenna got all…"

"I just pointed out that if we _wanted_ , I could access some national DNA databases, see who—"

Kono shoots Danny a look which speaks clearly to the joys of being in love with someone who tends to… well, Danny's going to be polite here and say _get a little fixated on shit_. "So we thought about who we could ask that we know instead—someone that we trust. We did consider you, Danny, no offense—it's just that you already have Grace, and we didn't know how easy this would be to explain to her or to the rest of your family. This is going to be complicated enough anyway."

Danny waves a hand, feeling magnanimous. It's not like his family tree hasn't branched out into dimensions beyond the regular at this point, and hey, his bank account's only just about able to keep up with having to make one set of child support payments. "None taken."

"And we know that you're healthy," Jenna says to Steve, "and intelligent. Plus you have strong ties to the island, so between that and the fact you're in the reserves now, you're not likely to leave the island before the baby's grown up."

"I… you'd want me to be involved? After the baby's born?"

"Sure," Kono shrugs. "We figured that we'd have primary custody, but… you'd be the dad, you know? Not just some anonymous donation. We'd want you to be involved, and we think you'd be good at it."

There's a long moment where even Danny's not sure what Steve's answer is going to be. Steve turns to look at him. He doesn't have to ask the obvious question; Danny just nods. It's a lot to take in, but Danny's had to deal with a lot more whiplash moments in his life and if Steve wants it, Danny's fine with it. Steve takes a deep breath and looks back over at Kono and Jenna; the smile on his face is tentative but it's bright and real. "I… yeah, okay. Yes. I'd be honored."

Danny doesn't think he's ever seen Kono cry before—not from happiness; not even that time when she got shot in the arm; she's one tough cookie—so he decides to undertake a tactical retreat. There's still a bottle of champagne in the fridge from that time they never actually got to celebrate New Year's, what with that whole hostage situation, so he snags that. No one's pregnant yet, so he figures a little bit of bubbly isn't such a bad idea when they've just agreed a group project to help bring a whole other person into the world. And hey, if everyone has some fizz in their veins, it won't be that different from how Rachel got pregnant, so.

He heads back into the living room with the bottle in one hand and four champagne flutes into the other, just in time to hear Steve say, "I don't have to have sex with one of you, right?"

Jenna makes a choking sound; Kono arches an eyebrow. Danny sighs, because his boyfriend might _look_ a whole lot like James Bond, but he'll probably never get the whole suave thing down.

"I mean," Steve says, clearly realizing that he's screwed up but isn't entirely sure how, "How does it—do we, or… probably not, right? But it's not like I wouldn't be happy to, I mean, I do my duty! But not… us… with the…" There is an unfortunate hand gesture. "Right?"

"No," Jenna says, taking the glass of champagne that Danny holds out to her with every sign of gratitude. "We were thinking of going with intracervical insemination, so you wouldn't need to do anything other than ejaculate into a specimen cup."

"Turkey baster!" Kono says, sounding far too cheerful. "No need for you to put your penis in anyone's vagina, boss."

Danny takes a healthy slug of his champagne. "Our problems," he says to no one in particular, "are not like other people's problems."

"Amen to that," Jenna says, and drains her glass.

**********

They talk about the practicalities involved. They talk about the legalities and the paperwork. They talk about the need for Steve to have ejaculated no more than twelve hours before insemination; they talk about Kono's cycle and health insurance and HPD rules on maternity leave. They talk so much that by the time Danny finally waves them goodbye and closes the door, sometime after seven, even he—the product of generations of talkative Italians and Irish and Russian Jews—is glad of the quiet.

He and Steve clean up in near silence, the only sounds in the house coming from the soft hum of the refrigerator and the muffled roar of the waves filtering in through the screen door. Danny collects up the empty glasses, the cartons of half-eaten Chinese food that they'd ordered in around five, all thoughts of making it to Whole Foods forgotten. Steve stands at the kitchen sink and scrubs things with an distracted look on his face, arms buried up to the elbow in dish soap lather and the water hot enough to make his cheeks flush. Danny brushes past him to put the last of the leftovers in the fridge and then leans against the counter and says, deliberately casual, "You wanna talk about it?"

Steve stops what he's doing, lets his head hang, braces his soapy hands against the sink. "I—I don't know," he says finally, looking over at Danny. He sounds uncertain in a way that's rare for him. Having their world rocked, sure, that's par for the course where the Five-0 team's concerned, but that's usually because of explosives and Steve knows what path to take regardless. Now, maybe, not so much. "I just… am I doing the right thing here?"

"You mean the part where you're going to be helping to knock up an ex-pro-surfer colleague and her ex-CIA hacker girlfriend?" Danny says, spreading his arms wide. "Because this sort of etiquette dilemma, my friend, I don't think Miss Manners covers it."

Steve shoots him a look. Of course it's not that, Danny knows—if any of the Five-0 members gave a crap about what other people thought of them, they'd never have joined the task force, or committed grand larceny for the sake of a friend. Hell, they'd never have let it become common knowledge that three out of four of them were queer. By this point, HPD should be jaded enough about them that finding out that McGarrett was planning to impregnate a lesbian subordinate would barely register on the office radar, considered about as interesting as Silva's terrible new hairpiece or the Chief's ham-fisted attempt to implement the latest HR initiative.

"Or," Danny continues, in a softer tone, "are you worried about being a dad?"

"I don't… I don't have much to…" Steve sounds like the words are hurting him, like they're tearing up his throat with the effort to get them out, and Danny can't believe this goof—that Steve can't recognize the fact that it's tearing him up this much means only good things.

"Hey," Danny says, taking the two steps over to him and wrapping his arms around Steve. Steve's hands leave damp, soapy patches on the back of Danny's t-shirt, but the amount of fucks Danny gives? Somewhere near zero. "Hey, Steven. Look at me. Kono and Jenna are two smart women. You know they thought this through. They have a lot of options, and they decided to ask you. That says something. So does how you are with Gracie. She's got you wrapped around her little finger, all right, but that doesn't matter as much as the fact that you'd do anything for her. I know you would; you helped bring her back to me and Rach. What makes you think you'd do anything less for a kid of your own?"

Steve sighs, a shuddering breath that Danny can feel reverberate through his own ribcage. "I just… I don't have the best role models for this, okay? The more I find out about my family, the more fucked up everything is, and what if I can't be any better than that? What if—"

Danny holds Steve tighter. "Because you don't have a track record of beating the odds? Babe—"

"I never thought I'd get to have this." Steve's words are quiet enough to have the weight of a confession.

"Well then," Danny says, stretching to kiss him on the temple. "Lucky you." And later, when Steve kisses him just before they head up the stairs to bed, he murmurs, "Lucky me."

**********

Life being what it is, Steve drops off to sleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow, one arm slung over Danny's belly and his legs tangled up in the sheets. Danny, however, stays awake, watching the moonlight slant across the ceiling, trying to sort through the hundred-and-one things that are busy ricocheting around the inside of his skull. He gets why Kono and Jenna didn't ask him—it would be a huge complication in a life that's already complicated enough—but that doesn't mean that things aren't going to be complex anyway. 

He'd had a friend back at the precinct in Jersey, Lloyd, who'd gone through something a little like this. Lloyd shot blanks, so he and Tina ended up using a sperm donor—and Lloyd loved that kid, sent out pictures of him in his Little League uniform to half his address book all the damn time, but Danny knew just how tough it'd been on him when Tina was trying to get pregnant. Danny'd sat in more than one dive bar with the guy, drinking shitty beer and watching the Knicks get their asses handed to them, while neither of them talked about the fact that Lloyd had just helped his wife inject some other guy's sperm into her vagina. Different situation now, of course, but Danny knows Steve—knows his tendency to get all worked up inside over something he doesn't know how to put words to, knows how just the promise of family is enough to make Steve reckless. 

So part of what he's saying is that Danny Williams is a pretty stand-up friend, thank you very much—but also that sometimes even if you want something really bad, the getting of it can leave you heart-sore and uncertain. Look at him and Rach, trying things second time round and no one the better of it. Look at him lying here, tying himself up in knots over _maybes_ and _could bes_ while Steve sleeps soundly beside him. Danny snorts at himself, punches the pillow a couple of times and tries to settle down himself. _No counting bad omen chickens_ , Williams, he tells himself. Things always look different in the morning.

**********

They wait until Monday to tell Chin, because hey, there probably is something in Miss Manners about upstaging someone's birthday celebration by breaking the news that you intend to knock up the cousin of the birthday girl's husband. Indexed under 'tacky' or something. Chin, to give him credit, looks far less freaked out by the whole scenario than the average person would be. He says, "Huh," when Kono's finished speaking, and then looks between Steve and Kono for a long moment. Steve stands in parade rest, but he can't stop his hands from fidgeting behind his back. He looks for all the world like a guilty teenager who's just been caught in the backseat of his car on prom night; Kono's chin has this pugnacious tilt to it, like she intends to give as good as she gets if Chin has a problem with this. Danny's not too big of a person to not find this hilarious. 

"You told Auntie yet?" Chin eventually says to Kono.

"Jenna and I are going over there tonight," Kono says.

"I want a blow-by-blow account," Chin says. "Plus, a bet on how long before she says you should start on nutritional supplements."

Kono rolls her eyes. "Cuz, she's been telling me I need more folic acid in my diet since I graduated college. The biggest thing she'll be worrying about is how she's going to tell the neighbors that her little girl is pregnant by her boss. She only just got them to believe that I'm living with a woman."

"True," Chin says, and then his face does something complicated and he's hugging her fiercely. Over her shoulder, he raises an eyebrow at Steve and says, "Welcome to honorary membership of the Kelly-Kalakaua clan. I hope you know what you're getting yourself in for, brah."

Danny seconds that sentiment—Steve's made a habit of jumping into the unknown both feet first, after all, and sometimes that habit's hurt more people than just himself. Danny can't blame Chin for wanting to be sure that Steve is aware of all the consequences his decision will have. 

Steve just nods and meets Chin's gaze steadily.

**********

Danny spends that afternoon on the floor in the records room, because he has the vague, niggling suspicion that there's something he ran across in the Hernandez case that might be useful in the Eggar murders. It's nothing he can put his finger on, but there's some part of his hindbrain that's very insistent that looking back over old Mrs Hernandez' papers will give him a eureka moment, so here he is: up to his elbows in financial documents from the 70s while his knee lets him know in pointed terms that it's not so happy with him. Round about three, just as he's considering giving up, the door opens and Kono pokes her head into the room. 

"Hey, Danny. You have a moment?"

Danny sweeps one arm wide. "Welcome to my kingdom. You in search of wisdom? Because all I can offer is a numb ass and a whole lot of dead trees. You know this woman never threw anything out, ever? I feel like I'm in an episode of _Hoarders_ , here. Look, there's a 1977 J.C. Penny catalog, which maybe we could keep, use it to scare suspects into talking. I'm pretty sure that guy in the high-waisted striped bell-bottoms is Ron Jeremy's big brother."

Kono sits down beside him and squints at the page. "That is some really scary facial hair, brah. I'm really glad I didn't have to live through that decade."

"It all seemed like a good idea at the time, I suppose," Danny says, though even he can hear the dubious note in his voice. After all, somewhere in Jersey, there's a picture of him as a kid in a red and brown velour leisure suit that's going to be destroyed with fire as soon as his mother passes. "Anyway. What can I help you with?"

Kono shrugs. "Nothing, really. I just wanted to check that you were okay with everything. We sort of sprung things on you guys on Saturday."

"Little bit," Danny agrees amiably, leaning back against one of the filing cabinets.

"Could have been worse," Kono says. "Jenna had this speech written for you guys. Itemized."

Danny squints at her. "Stats?"

"PowerPoint presentation," Kono says solemnly.

"Okay, so it could have been a whole lot worse," Danny says. "But seriously, don't worry about it. You think there's some special right way of doing these things?"

"Well, no," Kono says. "I just wanted to double-check. I mean, this is something Jenna and I want, and I'm pretty sure Steve wants it just as much. Chin's happy, and so are all my aunties, and I had to talk my mom out of putting a notice in the _Star-Advertiser_. But for us to get what we want, your life gets turned upside down a little."

"Hey," Danny says. "Getting divorced, that was my life turning upside down. Having to move halfway across the Pacific Ocean, deciding I wasn't as straight as I thought I was long past the whole college-experimentation phase, finding out my little brother had an _Interpol search warrant_ out for him—that counts as turning my life upside down. This?" He waggles a hand. "Not so much."

"Ha ha," Kono says, and elbows him gently in the side. "So it's not the worst thing in the world. That doesn't mean it's nothing."

"No," Danny says softly. "It's a baby. It's never nothing." He pauses for a moment. "Are _you_ feeling good about this? Because you're the one who's going to be taking point on this one."

The smile on Kono's face is full and unreserved, unhesitating in a way that reminds Danny of the first time he saw her, striding out of the surf and clocking some guy for nearly hurting them both. "Yeah. I never really thought much about having kids one way or another until I got serious with Jenna, but now it's…" She taps two fingertips against her breastbone. "It's like I can feel how much I want us to be a family. I know I want to be a mom; I'm not worried about that." Her smile wavers suddenly.

"But?"

"I wonder if I'll be a good mom. Kids need so much, and what if I can't give it? I'm not, you know…" She wrinkles her nose. "Maternal. I don't want to start canning things or baking cupcakes or staying at home. And this isn't an easy job, you know that, but it's one thing to have some random asshole in Booking call me the Five-0 dyke and another thing to bring a kid into—"

"Hey, hey," Danny says, interrupting, because if Kono keeps talking she's going to start hyperventilating and he's going to be seized with the overwhelming desire to go teach some people in HPD a pointed lesson about collegiality. "This is Kono Kalakaua I'm talking to, right? The woman who does six impossible things before breakfast and then says 'shoots, brahs, I'm off to catch a wave'?"

Kono laughs a little at his deliberately terrible Hawaiian accent—not that Danny thinks he'd ever be able to lose the Jersey from his voice if he tried.

"Which is another way of saying," Danny continues, "that as long as I've known you, there's nothing you haven't been able to do when you put your mind to it. You're smart and you're focused and you always, always protect your family. You'll be a _fantastic_ mom. And hey, if nothing else, all these cases you've worked for Five-0 should tell you something about how _not_ to be a terrible parent, right?"

"That is depressingly true," Kono tells him, and leans into his side, resting her head against his shoulder. He can smell the citrus of her shampoo, and he wraps one arm around her because hey, it's not like Danny doesn't know what it's like to be scared as hell about something and know you need to do it anyway.

"But there is one thing you can do for me," Danny says after a long moment.

"Sure thing," Kono says.

"Help me up? I've got pins and needles in my leg, I think I'm going to fall over. Ow. Ow. _Ow_."

**********

A little after nine thirty that night, they've finished dinner and are out on the lanai when Danny's phone beeps. He surfaces from his copy of the latest Stephen King to see that it's a text message from Jenna.

>   
> 
> 
> **Jenna (09:41):** all ok. v. happy @thought of 1st grandchild. only worried if K had to have sex w/ steve, but explained team dynamic screwed regardless. mcg's virtue = safe.  
>  **Danny (09:43):** virtue?  
>  **Jenna (09:43):** relatively speaking

He snorts, which gets Steve's attention despite the intense focus he's been giving to a newly purchased copy of _What to Expect When You're Expecting_. Steve is a freak; Danny knows this because Steve's been taking notes on the pregnancy book, using multicolored Sharpies and neon sticky notes. The coffee table looks like a craft store exploded all over it. "Everything okay?" 

"Yeah, babe," Danny says. "Jenna's just checking in, says everything went okay with Mama Kalakaua. You get the official family seal of approval."

Steve says, with mock-solemnity, "Well, that's the worst part over with," but Danny knows him—knows that Steve might try to laugh it off by being a goof, but that he was genuinely worried that Mrs. Kalakaua would veto him. Mrs. Kalakaua is a tiny woman—Danny feels like a giant standing next to her—who passed on her thin frame to her daughter, but Steve treats her with more awe than he would a three star general. She's been known to stop by the Five-0 with tupperware full of food during cases that run long, earning Steve's adoration and Danny's great appreciation with her generous portions of bi-bim-bop. If she'd declared him not good enough for her daughter, Danny knows that Steve would've been crushed in more ways than one—Steve's always been bad at not wearing his heart on his sleeve.

Danny stretches out one leg, nudges Steve's foot with his own. "Hey."

Steve shifts in his chair, not quite meeting Danny's eyes. "I just…"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, you worry," Danny says, "because worst-case scenario planning, that's your default state, that's what you're trained for. But this is all going to work out okay, _and_ you're guaranteed to be Mama Kalakaua's favorite until the baby comes. You've got, like, a lifetime's supply of free kimchi coming your way."

Steve worries at a hangnail on his left thumb. "And… you really are okay with this, right?"

Danny arches an eyebrow at him. "Now he asks? _Yes_ , Steven, don't give me that face! Yes, I'm fine with this. Would I have given you the go ahead if I wasn't fine with this? What exactly in my history with you screams 'Danny Williams, delicate flower, not known for speaking his mind when dissatisfied'?" That gets him an eye-roll, which is much more regular Steve territory. Perversely, it makes Danny feel a little relieved. 

"I just didn't want you to feel like you were railroaded into this. Having a kid is a big deal. And in this kind of situation, you know people are going to—"

"Nuh uh," Danny says, shaking his head. "Because railroading someone is, I don't know, forcibly appropriating them into your private little task force. Dragging them along into a felony or seven for the sake of personal vendettas. Saying 'Hey, Danny, so I've been thinking' and then sticking your tongue down my throat _right there in the middle of the work place_. That, my friend, _that_ is railroading."

"You are never going to get over that, are you, I—"

"I'm just saying, a little civility never hurt anyone. A little wooing, some flowers—"

"You wanted me to buy you _flowers_? Danno—"

"Which leads me to conclude," Danny says, allowing himself a smirk of triumph, "that _this_ is what it sounds like when I'm dissatisfied with something, and I have not sounded like this at all when on the topic of you becoming a dad. _Ergo_ , I am fine with it."

"You're such an asshole," Steve sighs, but there's no heat behind it, and some of the fine lines around his eyes even out.

"Yes," Danny says, and leans in to press a kiss to Steve's stubbled cheek, "but I'm _your_ —actually, wait, no, scratch that, that's one of those things you can't turn into an endearment without it being really disgusting."

Steve laughs so hard that he scares a couple of birds out on the lanai into taking flight.

**********

Unsurprisingly, given their line of work, they know a whole gaggle of lawyers between them. A thick sheaf of papers gets delivered to the office two weeks later and they spend most of that lunch time signing here and initialing there—even Danny, because he figures it's about time that he updates his will, gets stuff in order with Steve as Grace's guardian in case the shit ever hits the fan spectacularly and neither Danny nor Rach are around anymore. Danny's parents are both a little beyond raising a pre-teen at this point, after all, and Danny doesn't think it'd be good to uproot Gracie from the island again—not when she's just starting to work on some quality middle-schooler hormones. Of course, just because it's the right thing to do doesn't mean it's not mind-numbingly awful. Danny squints at page twenty-nine. "Wait, who's the party of the third part again?" 

"Jenna," Kono says, at the same moment that Steve says, "You are."

They all blink at one another for a moment before they stare glumly back down at the pages. The thoughts of going through all of them, of _re-reading them_ , again gives Danny a sinking feeling, not unlike the one he experiences every time he sits down to fill in his taxes and starts wondering if he can claim 'partner uses car as storage place for hand grenades' as a legitimate business expense. "Okay," he says, deciding it's time for a command decision. "Is anyone obligated by the terms of this contract to give a kidney to anyone else?"

"Nope," Jenna says.

"Or become a henchperson in anyone's fiendish plot to take over the world using a zombie army?"

"No kidneys, no zombies," Steve says.

"Okay then." Danny signs _Daniel Michael Williams_ across the last page with a flourish and pushes the stack of papers away from him. "Hey, it's not like we haven't talked this through and come up with all the angles ourselves. The paperwork's a formality, right? Just means other people have to recognize what we've already decided on, so I don't really care if I'm the part of the third, fourth, or fifteenth party. We're good."

Kono dimples at him, then initials and signs the last page of her own set of papers. "I guess we are."

Danny feels Steve's foot nudging his under the table—a silent question. Danny just raises an eyebrow at him, making Steve huff and finish signing his own pages, which, tough, that's what Steve gets for asking if Danny's really, truly okay with this when he's already got his answer signed, sealed and ready to be delivered. Jenna takes a little longer to give in and sign things—if Danny had to bet any money, he'd put it on her fighting back the urge to suggest they read everything one last time because _what if_ ; being in the CIA has trained her well in the art of red tape, in all the ways people can hide behind the law and break the good faith in every promise. Then she sets her jaw and scrawls her signature in thick black ink, underlines it for good measure, and Danny feels a little burst of admiration at seeing someone so plainly work past her own boundaries for the sake of family.

**********

The paperwork part of it sucks, but Danny has to say he doesn't mind at all his part in the actual process of conception. Sure, having to hold the specimen jar in one hand introduces a new logistical challenge to the mix, but never let it be said that Danny Williams is one to back down from a challenge. "It's a high stakes mission, Detective Williams," Steve says, waggling his eyebrows, "are you sure you're ready for the challenge?", and geez, loving this goof has Danny all twisted up inside with the force of it. 

He kisses Steve, slow and deliberate, before curling his hands around Steve's hips and using them to turn Steve around. Steve braces himself against the counter in the bathroom; Danny presses up against him from behind and reaches around to jack Steve off. Steve's still sleep-warm, and when Danny strokes Steve's belly with his free hand—the tan skin soft and the hair pleasantly rough against his palm—the muscles there jump at his touch. "Challenge, huh?" Danny says, grinning at the feeling of Steve growing steadily harder. He rubs his thumb in slow circles over the head of Steve's cock and says, in a voice that's as smug as he can make it, "Challenge accepted."

"Bastard," Steve huffs, seemingly caught between the urge to push forward into Danny's hand or back against his cock. "Would you just…"

"Just what?" Danny says innocently. He slows down his stroke, adds a twist when he reaches the head, the way he knows Steve likes. Danny moves his free hand from Steve's stomach to his hip, grips it so that Steve can't move as much as he wants. He has to stand there and take it: let Danny decide the speed, the pressure, and right now Danny wants this to last. He wants to take forever with this, because this is the two of them helping to create something brand new right here; because he wants Steve to get it, to understand that Danny's not going anywhere and that some things you can get if you're just willing to ask for them. 

Steve's low groans are a punch to the gut, just like always—hoarse and needy, a surefire sign that he's getting close—and Danny can't stop his hips from working at the sounds, grinding his cock against the curve of Steve's ass, at the way Steve's head drops and his arms tremble and his fingers splay white-knuckled across the tile. He watches their reflections in the mirror as Steve's breathing grows harsher and Danny feels himself get closer to the edge: the picture they make, the two of them, tan skin and tattoos, the morning light catching the hairs on Danny's forearms and Steve's hard cock pushing through Danny's fist.

"C'mon, babe," Danny says in his ear, "c'mon, like that, you can show me, that's right."

Danny comes before Steve does, striping Steve's lower back and the curve of his ass. He has to fumble to keep his grip on the jar and catch Steve's come, screws on the lid with trembling fingers.

"Skilled," Steve mumbles at him. He's grinning and looking at Danny in the mirror with sleepy, half-closed eyes; Danny has to fight down the urge to drag him over to the bed and do filthy, filthy things to him until they can both get it up again.

Danny mock glares at him. "Hey, you, no sex looks on a work morning. I mean it—if you make me late just because you're trying to tempt me with your hot ass—"

Steve's eyes widen in a deliberate display of innocence. "This one?" he says as he presses his ass back against Danny's softening cock.

"Unfair use of tactical advantage!" Danny yelps, unable to stop the shudder that ripples through him. "Totally against regs." But his protests don't stop him from feeling Steve up as he pushes him into the shower, or stop him from following Steve in and pressing close as they wash themselves clean. They don't have sex again, but they do make out a little: Steve cupping Danny's face in his hands and kissing him until he's breathless, the water pounding hot against their shoulders. Steve smiles the whole time, in that helpless way that means he couldn't stop if he tried, and there's no way Danny could deny him this, not even if it meant all the paperwork in the world.

**********

The first time doesn't… take, or whatever word you want to use to describe something the consequence of which is Kono waving a pregnancy test at Steve across the Five-0 and yelling, "Your boys didn't make it, boss!" and Steve yelling back, "You sure you peed on the right bit?" 

Danny'd been on the phone with a state senator at the time. From the awkward silence that ensued, he was pretty sure that the senator had heard everything. Still, it wasn't like the team had much of a reputation for sanity at this point, so.

They have conversations about sperm motility, ovulation dates and cycles: in the middle of a high-speed chase; stranded on the scaffolding of a high-rise construction site; when interrogating a suspect; in the bulk grains section of a Whole Foods. Danny doesn't think he knew this much about Rachel's vagina when he was sleeping with her, but Kono thinks modesty is an outdated concept and any talk of biochemistry brings Steve the Science Guy to the forefront. Danny's outgunned on this one—the only concession he can get is that they both agree to use their indoor voices when talking about this stuff.

Steve gets a little antsy about the delay, starts to wonder if its some problem with him even though all the medical tests came back just fine. "I've just been through a lot of stuff in my time," he says one weekend when they're halfway around the Manana Trail, and between the steep gradient and the climbing sun, Danny's sort of regretting that last pancake he had before they set out. "There's always the possibility that some of it could have caused damage I didn't know about."

Danny squints. "Damage? What, you get shot in private places? There a scar I haven't noticed during my previous, uh, investigations? Because let me tell you my friend, I have looked carefully, I have been thorough, and I've never—"

Steve makes a face at him. "Not like that. Stuff like…" He huffs out a sigh, ducks underneath a low-hanging branch. "Okay, so I can't tell you what part of Afghanistan we were in, or what the op was, but the only way to make it to the target was on horseback. Terrain was too difficult for ground transport and choppers would have been too noticeable. So after a day or two, we were all saddle sore, right, to the point of having to worry about infection. The brass sent in all these jars of Vaseline to help, but at that altitude the air's really dry and the dust is like this fine grit. It gets everywhere."

Danny blinks, to get rid of the mental image of Navy SEALs rubbing lube into one another's thighs—he's only human, and while those of Steve's former military buddies whom Danny's met have been lacking in charm and, you know, morals, Steve's hotness is self-evident. "And?"

"So the dust gets mixed into the Vaseline and does more harm than good—it was like rubbing sandpaper into open wounds," Steve says, breaking into a jog as they start up a section of the trail where so many tree roots have broken through the ground that they form a series of steps.

"Jesus." Danny can't stop himself from flinching.

"Yeah. What we really needed were chaps, but…" Steve shrugs.

"Let me guess, not widely available in Kabul."

"Not really. So, long story short, we ended up buying in a large batch of extra-large pantyhose. Wore them the rest of the way to the target, accomplished the mission, made it back to base."

Danny stops cold in the middle of the trail. "Wait, wait. Let me get this straight. You're telling me that a group of manly men Navy SEALs went into battle against a bunch of religious fundamentalists while wearing _pantyhose_?"

"Yeah." Steve's mouth twitches in that way that means he's amused but he's trying to hide it. "Some of them were patterned."

"That is a very special mental image, Steven." Danny says solemnly. Choking back his laughter is one of the hardest things he's ever done. "Thank you for sharing it with me. But why do you think it's got anything to do with now?"

"Well, these books I've been reading," Steve says, "they say that too much heat or compression on your balls can bring down your sperm count and motility. So what if that's an issue? What if the hose and the—"

Danny holds up a hand. The concept of 'compression' is one that should never, ever be associated with a man's testicles. "Did you guys make a habit out of wearing pantyhose around the place? Ever wandered around the desert in Iraq in garters and stockings, huh?"

"Well, no. It was just that one mission."

"So," Danny says, leaning up to kiss him. "I don't think you have much to worry about."

Steve kisses him back, and then squeezes his eyes shut for a long moment. "I'm freaking out about this, aren't I?"

"Little bit," Danny says lightly. He kisses Steve again and then says, shifting his weight from foot to foot, "So, uh, _could_ the pantyhose become a habit? Because I'm just saying, as an image, that works for me a surprising amount."

Steve's eyes widen, and then they narrow, and then they're very, very lucky that no one else is hiking the trail that particular morning.

**********

Kono gets pregnant in late April. They're having brunch out on the lanai one Sunday morning—Danny and Steve, of course, Jenna and Kono, Chin and Malia and Gracie, who's peppering Malia with questions because she decided a couple of weeks ago that she wants to be a doctor when she grows up and god, when did Danny's little girl get so big that she's starting to think about a _career_? There's no big announcement—Kono quietly excuses herself to go use the bathroom and when she comes back, her eyes are bright with unshed tears and her smile is wobbly. 

"Honey?" Jenna says, standing. "What's wrong?"

"It shouldn't work for another few days," Kono says, "but I had a feeling and I couldn't wait, so I checked." She holds up a little plastic stick in one hand. Danny can't read the display from where he's sitting, but Jenna lets out a whoop and jumps out of her seat, hugging Kono and kissing her, the two of them laughing and crying all at once.

"We're going to be parents?" she says, giddy with it, and Steve punches the air in jubilation.

"Ho'omaika'i, cuz!" Chin says, and Malia offers her congratulations, too, and the number of the best midwife she knows.

Steve stands and hugs Kono and then Jenna, wrapping his big arms around the two of them for a long moment before he turns and beams at Danny. "Danno," is all he says; is all it takes for Danny to get out of his chair and hug Steve, too.

"You big lug," Danny mumbles against Steve's chest. "Wind changes, your face will be stuck like that."

Steve rests his cheek against the crown of Danny's head and whispers, "I'm going to be a dad."

Danny squeezes Steve tighter and says, "You're going to be a great dad, you idiot."

"I hope so," Steve says. His voice sounds thick with emotion.

"I know so," Danny says, pulling back a little and clapping Steve on the arm. "Which is why you're going to take point in helping me explain to Grace what's going on."

They both turn to see Grace looking at them with wide eyes. "Auntie Kono's going to have a baby with Aunt Jenna? Is this like Tommy's moms?"

"Oh god," Steve says faintly.

"Buck up," Danny says. "Think of it as practice for talking about the birds and the bees one day."

Steve turns white.

**********

Danny, of course, is the one who actually has an awkward conversation in his near future. He likes to think that he's a mannerly person, and it's probably considered courteous to, you know, give your ex-wife and mother of your child a heads up that you and your boyfriend are planning to have a baby with one of your co-workers and her intelligence analyst girlfriend. (It sounds really… something when Danny phrases it that way.) 

When he drops Grace back that evening, he asks Rachel if he can come in to talk to her about something. She peers at him, wary, and it's not like he can blame her for that—they've made something of a habit of hurting one another these past few years, despite all their best intentions. Sometimes because of them. All of which means that when he _does_ tell her about the baby, the look of shock on her face is comical—her jaw drops and her eyes go wide and Danny's pretty sure it's only generations of Home Counties breeding which prevents her from doing something so uncouth as saying "You have to be fucking kidding me", or spilling her tea all over the green silk of her dress.

"Well, Daniel," she says after a long pause, carefully setting her cup back in its saucer. "I can't say that this was what I was expecting to hear."

Danny shrugs. "Not something I was planning on either, but so it goes."

"For you," Rachel says, pouring some fresh tea into her cup, "that is a remarkably level philosophy."

"Can I claim it as a sign of my increasing maturity and hard-won wisdom?" Danny says, spreading his hands.

Rachel arches one neatly-groomed eyebrow at him.

"Okay, okay, fine," Danny says. "I'm not going to say I'm not all kinds of nervous about this, because it's at least fifteen different kinds of complicated and there's three times as many ways it could all go wrong. But hell, my life's already that many kinds of complicated anyway, so why not add something new to the mix." He runs his fingers through his hair, an old nervous gesture that he's never quite managed to kick. "Plus, it's… okay, you know the whole thing with women glowing when they're pregnant? The whole happy hormone cocktail thing?"

One corner of Rachel's mouth curls upwards. "Vaguely."

"Steve does the exact same thing, it's ridiculous, even before you factor in the eyelashes. And you know, this is…. He really wants this, and I know he'll be a good dad, and I love him. So that's what it takes, apparently. I wouldn't ever stop him from having this."

Rachel looks at him for a long moment, and then tops up his teacup with a smile. "Perhaps, Daniel," she says, "you can claim it as wisdom after all."

**********

His folks take it better than he thought they would; he supposes that when you've got one son with ties to several major global drug cartels who's on Interpol's most wanted list, the fact that your other son not only spends his Sunday mornings in bed with a dude instead of going to Mass, but is also going to quasi have a baby with him sort of pales in comparison. 

"Well," his mom says, "I guess I'd better get a start on knitting a baby blanket, then. Yellow wool, or purple? I think I might have some of that multicolored yarn left from the one I did for Carrie's baby…" She makes no other comment about the decision itself, about Steve and Danny or even the fact that two other people are involved in making this baby, but while it may come as a surprise to some people, Danny knows how to pick his battles. He doesn't push her on it, in part because he has the sneaking suspicion that the first baby photos will probably bring her around, and in part because he knows Mollie and Heather will work on her anyway—no way in hell are his sisters going to pass up on an opportunity to visit Hawaii and get to fuss over a baby at the same time. Danny's working on the same principle when he lets the Williams women deal with telling his dad. Pop's old school, and he's never been rude about Steve but he's clearly silently uncomfortable with the whole thing.

(Sometimes, Danny chalks that up to his poor decision to break the news of him and Steve to the Williams family en masse—Mollie'd wrinkled her nose and said, "You and buttsex, Danny? Really?" His life, for real.)

Danny has no idea how Steve breaks the news to Mary—the ways of McGarrett sibling communication are still mysterious unto Danny, and frankly to most people who weren't raised in a household messed up beyond the telling of it—but there's an email in Danny's inbox when he wakes up one morning about a week later.

>   
> 
> 
> **From:** maryannmcgarrett@airwest.com  
>  **To:** dwilliams@honolulupd.org  
>  **Subject:** things to know
> 
> mcgarrett babies take longer than normal to sleep through the night. start hoarding coffee now. we like to yell & we've got pretty strong lungs. i know you're shocked. ask mamo about the lullabies he'd sing to us to get us to sleep, because i don't know if that's the sort of thing steve would remember, & i think the kiddo should know them too.
> 
> also, red album, top shelf, guest room wardrobe, all the mcgarrett baby photos. steve's curls were epic. i never told you this.
> 
> mary

Danny finds the photos just where Mary said they would be, and sure enough, for the first two years of his life, Steve had some pretty cherubic curls going on. Danny sits on the bed in the guest room and flips through the album, looking at the McGarrett family caught in the faded, sepia tones of the late 70s—John and Caroline McGarrett, the parents-in-law that Danny will never have a chance to get to know, beaming down at a bundle of blankets that Danny knows must house Steve; a Polaroid of Steve, maybe two months old, staring up at the camera with a comical look of surprise on his face; Steve taking his first steps, heading for his beaming mom on wobbling, chubby legs. 

Danny wonders if he could peer hard enough at these pictures and see the moment where it all started to go wrong—if somewhere in here, in a frown or an unguarded moment, there's the first hint of the fact that Jack McGarrett had crossed some dangerous people. No way of knowing, of course—but, Danny thinks, eyebrows climbing, as he turns to the last page of the album, apparently he can pinpoint the day when Papa and Mama McGarrett thought it would be a great idea to have a professional picture taken of their baby boy. 

Lying on a bear-skin rug. Grinning gummily. Bare ass naked. 

It's quite possibly the best thing Danny's ever seen.

>   
> 
> 
> **From:** dwilliams@honolulupd.org  
>  **To:** maryannmcgarrett@airwest.com  
>  **Subject:** Re: things to know  
>  **Attachment:** steve_seventiescool.jpg (303kb)
> 
> You are definitely going to be Cool Aunt Mary, because you're already my favourite sister-in-law. Next time you're back here, margarita pitchers are on me. 
> 
> DW

**********

Kamekona offers them all his heartiest congratulations, a rib-shattering slap on the back for Steve, and three pounds of garlic spam shrimp surprise on the house. Danny eyes the Styrofoam box suspiciously. "If you're telling us up front that there's garlic and spam in there," he says, "do I want to know what the surprise is?" 

"Nah, braddah," Kamekona says, "Can't tell you—it's what we call a trade secret. But it's excellent for morning sickness. Old Kamekona family recipe."

"Garlic shrimp for morning sickness?" Steve says. His nose is wrinkled in that way he sees that Danny didn't fold his clothes immediately on taking them off, or when someone reminds him of the Geneva Convention. 

"Don't forget the spam!" Kamekona says.

"I don't think that's possible," Danny says, "no one's ever been able to forget the prospect of spam."

"My food always stays in the imagination," Kamekona says, beaming. "You just tell Kono that my shrimp truck is always open for her. A growing baby needs its nutrition."

The terrifying thing is that Kono does like it, surprise and all. Danny and Steve both get used to swinging by the truck on their way home from work to pick up some for her. She swears it's the secret sauce; Danny thinks the hormones starting to flood her system make her more enthusiastic than normal about prying the shells off.

"You're not going to start, you know…" Danny says one morning as they drive into work.

"Not going to start what?" Steve says, squinting over at him, and Jesus, Danny really wishes he'd stop doing that at sixty miles per hour. 

"Eyes on the road, eyes on the _road_ ," Danny says. "I just wanted to make sure that you weren't going to start one of those sympathetic pregnancy things with Kono—cravings for bizarre foods, overactive bladder—"

"Can we leave my bladder out of this?" Steve says, scrunching up his nose. 

"—you know, so I can start planning for this, so I can start keeping track of the nearest public restrooms or stocking up on pickles and Tabasco sauce but clearly, _clearly_ ," and Danny knows his voice is rising above polite levels, but whatever, he's owed, "you and Kono are simpatico anyway what with your mutual love of shooting shit and _driving like crazy people_." 

There's a moment of silence after that while Danny folds his arms and tries to think calming thoughts. Meditation's never been his strong point.

"We done?" Steve says as they pull into the Five-0 parking lot. 

Danny sighs, scrubs his face with his hands, and then leans over to smack a kiss on Steve's cheek. "That's the problem with you and me, babe," he says as he opens the car door. "I don't think we'll ever be done."

**********

Twelve weeks in, Kono has her first ultrasound and the pictures are swiftly stuck up on the walls of the Five-0 break-room, a row of black-and-white images (punctuated by a copy of infant Steve's bearskin modeling moment; what, like Danny wasn't going to share the wealth?) that draws the attention of everyone who walks in there. 

"I think he's got Steve's nose," Chin says, peering from the scans to Steve and back again. "That is definitely a McGarrett nose."

"I don't know," Kono says. At this point in the pregnancy, her stomach has just begun to swell, but its concave lines are still mostly hidden by a series of loose, layered tank tops. "I think that's a Kalakaua jawline, brah." 

Chin nods with every sign of satisfaction.

"You all realize," Danny says, "that right now the kid just looks like some kind of squid, right? Or Yoda. I didn't know that Yoda hung out on the islands." Between Gracie and Charlie, nieces and nephews and the children of friends, Danny's seen a lot of ultrasounds in his time and they always seem to him like one of those magic eye pictures—you know, concentrate your eyes on one part of the picture and it's an elephant, look somewhere else and hey, a giraffe!

Kono and Steve look one another and shrug, their expressions so similar that Danny thinks for the umpteenth time that letting Steve have a hand in the training of a rookie was such a bad idea. "Maybe he did, Danny," Steve says. "Jedi are pretty laidback. Could be kama'aina for sure."

"Those ninja guys?" Danny says. "The ones who like to chop people up with laser swords, you're telling me they're living the aloha life now?"

"Kono kidney punched a guy last week," Steve offers, "and then we all went surfing." He and Kono fist-bump one another, grinning like lunatics, and Danny sighs heavily. He supposes that if the world's ever going to be ready for a combination of McGarrett and Kalakaua DNA, it's a good thing that him and Jenna will be around to teach the kid how to use his words like a normal person. 

**********

Jenna and the CIA came to a mutual "maybe it's best we don't see one another anymore" arrangement several months back. Enough had been messed up on both sides that she got whatever was the intel analyst version of an honorable discharge—severance pay and excellent references in return for her never using the leverage she had against the agency. The job she has now requires some sort of advanced data analysis—Danny knows it involves numbers, but you'd have to look to someone else for specifics—for a corporation with a branch in Honolulu. It's a nine-to-five desk gig, the kind of hours that no member of Five-0 could ever rely on. Jenna now looks much more rested than she ever had when she was working with Five-0, has funny workplace stories that don't involve anyone hanging from skyscrapers by their fingertips or finding grenades in bizarre places, and can usually be relied on to meet Danny for lunch on the rare days he's not with Steve and has time to eat something that actually comes served on a plate. 

It's Wednesday, and they're in a little hole-in-the-wall place just around the corner from Jenna's workplace, one that Danny really likes because they do good soup and sandwiches and none of their recipes ever, ever seem to include pineapple. Danny's famished, working his way through his club sandwich with the single-minded devotion that comes from the fact that he spent the morning chasing down some little punk who'd keyed all the cars in the governor's motor pool. Jenna, on the other hand, is swirling her spoon around and around in her bowl of carrot-ginger soup and Danny doesn't think she's touched a drop of it.

He gives her until the end of his sandwich to bring it up on her own, but when he's finished his last mouthful, Jenna's still quiet and distant. "Okay," he says, "out with it."

"Sorry?" Jenna says, jerking upright. Her spoon clatters against the side of her bowl, sending some of the soup slopping over the side. She curses under her breath and dabs at the spill with a napkin.

"That look on your face, it's like Chin when someone takes his shotgun away. What's wrong? And don't tell me nothing, because I'm a dad, we're trained in ferreting out these things." He gestures at one of the wait staff to bring them another two coffees, sits back and watches Jenna stir creamer into her cup before she speaks.

"I don't…" she begins, then breaks off on a sigh. "I just… I don't know, it's stupid. I should be happy—I _am_ happy, we both want this—but I guess I'm scared."

"Hey," Danny says, as softly as he knows how, "hey, it's okay. You want to know how terrified I was before Gracie was born? Extra-strength deodorant was required for the last few months, because what the hell did I know about raising a kid? I was twenty-five, I was an idiot, I had no clue how to balance a checkbook or any of those things you're _supposed_ to know how to do once you become an adult. But then boom, there Grace was, and she was perfect, and it didn't matter how much I didn't know, or all the things I couldn't do—the only thing that mattered was that me and Rachel, we were willing to do whatever it took to look after our little girl. And I'm not saying it's all been easy, but nothing's happened, _nothing_ , that's made me regret having her. Not once."

Jenna worries at her bottom lip. "I know, but… what if I _am_ terrible at this? I was an only child, what if I'm no good at sharing Kono with someone? Or what if the baby doesn't like _me_? I won't be—I mean, the doctor said it's not an option for me to, to… because of the gunshot injuries… and I'm okay with that, really, but what if the baby can sense that? What if he doesn't think I'm _really_ his—"

Danny holds up a hand. "Okay, that right there? That's a line of thinking you're going to have to stop, right this minute. That's not how kids work. That's not how hearts work. You'll be a mom in absolutely every way that counts. And it's not like it's going to be a walk in the park for anyone. There's no rulebook for this shit. Like, hey, I'm sitting back and watching my boyfriend knock up your girlfriend, and not even in a way which involves fun but slightly kinky sexy times for all. I never had to negotiate anything like this before I moved to Hawaii, hand to god."

"Are you kidding me?" Jenna says with a snort. "This place makes _Twin Peaks_ look like a Fifties sitcom."

Danny clinks mugs with her and grins. There's the Jenna he knows and loves; the one who pulled through three gunshots to the belly thanks to sheer force of will and cracked terrible jokes from her hospital bed while holding fiercely to Kono's hand. "I knew there was a reason I liked you."

**********

"Ugh, I hate having boobs," Kono says one day while she, Danny and Chin are sitting around the conference table, chasing a potential lead through acres of financial paperwork. She pokes at her chest—which, admittedly, thanks to the marvels of pregnancy hormones, is much more prominent than ever before—and Danny tries to find something interesting in the ceiling to look at because hey, getting a pencil-based tracheotomy from Chin Ho Kelly is not how he wants to leave this world. 

"Um," he attempts.

"I'll probably have to buy a _bra_ ," Kono continues. "Do you know how uncomfortable those things are? There's wire and they're lumpy and god, so _expensive_. Why do some people like them so much?"

"Uh," Danny says in a somewhat strangled voice, "I really couldn't say," which is a total lie, because he may be really enthusiastic about Steve's penis but that doesn't mean he doesn't still consider himself a connoisseur of breasts in all their variety. Danny spent a lot of summers growing up on the Jersey Shore, okay? "Excuse me for a moment," he says before standing and leaving the room, because really: Chin is a man of great patience, but it's not _infinite_.

**********

"So," Jenna says one lunchtime, taking a slice from the pizza she and Danny are sharing. "I got up to make some tea for us last night, and when I came back into the living room, she was sobbing. Full on, can't catch her breath, eyes all puffy and red sobbing. So of course my first reaction is to panic—did she get some bad news, was it the baby, what?" 

"Oh boy," Danny says, taking a sip of his soda. "Why do I feel this is going somewhere good?"

"The baby was fine, everyone was fine," Jenna says, "She was crying because there's an ad on for insurance, and, quote, "the man's just so excited that he can save on his renter's insurance if he combines it with his auto insurance", end quote."

Danny blinks. "Wow. Pregnancy hormones really are a hell of a thing."

"Yeah," Jenna says contemplatively as she takes another bite of his pizza. "Of course, they really boost her libido, so we're having phenomenal sex. Like, all over the house. Constantly."

Danny chokes.

"What?" Jenna says, raising an eyebrow. "I've lived with Kono for two years, you think I haven't learned to move past euphemism?"

Point.

**********

Of course, no one thinks to pass on a memo to the criminal population of the island of Oahu to say, "hey, the Five-0 are going through some big life stuff; you mind taking it easy on them for a while?" Ergo, Kono's second trimester is one of the busiest periods that they ever put in at work. Chin proves it with statistics, e-mailed to everyone at one in the morning when he's in the middle of a stakeout and Danny's only just passed out after an epic evening spent alternately on the phone about warrants for the Dubois case and chaperoning Gracie's birthday party ( _Let's have it here_! Steve said. _Everyone loves beach parties_! Steve said. Oh, the innocence of the not-yet-parents. Just for that, Danny generously let Steve be the one to clean up Tommy's upchucking extravaganza after the kid had an ill-advised three helpings of cake.) 

They track down and arrest a serial arsonist, solve a forty-year-old cold case, and get a commendation and a dressing down from the Governor all in the same day. Chin pitches a quiet fit about Steve driving his motorbike down the side of a mountain in pursuit of a suspect, Steve and Kono talk way too loudly in the middle of the office about gruesome surfing injuries they had known, and Danny never, ever seems to get to the bottom of his pile of paperwork. Danny gets woken up at the ass-crack of dawn because Steve's range of mania extends to swimming a half mile in the goddamned Pacific before breakfast, and because he likes to shake the salt water from his hair all over Danny before he goes to shower. 

In other words, things are pretty much the same as usual: Steve blows shit up, Kono shoots things, and Chin is the only one of them who seems to give a crap about his burgeoning insurance premiums. 

Pretty much the same, at least; now that there's a baby on the way, Steve seems to be finding new ways to channel his crazy. "Wait," Danny says one morning, "wait, wait, are you on hold with the bank about setting up a college savings account _in the middle of a firefight_?"

"Uh," Steve says, and how did this asshole ever have a job doing undercover stuff, huh, because his pokerface is for _shit_.

"You," Danny says, "you are on blowjob embargo for at least a week, you hear me?"

"Hey," says one of the terrorists from behind the other side of the crates where he and his buddies are holed up. "You think you guys could save the couple's argument for later? You're not exactly respecting our boundaries, you know."

"Shut up!" Steve and Danny yell simultaneously, and then Steve goes and shoots the terrorist in the thigh, so what the hell. The afternoon's not an entire waste.

**********

They bring in a big-time drug runner when Kono's eight months along—a burly, sneering guy who's dealt coke to the kids of half the politicians on the islands. He clearly gives not one shit about the fact that cutting his stuff with horse tranquilizers has left two fifteen-year-olds dead and another one in a coma. Danny's standing outside the interrogation room, working on his breathing and reminding himself why he's not going to go down the route of police brutality, no matter how much the bastard deserves it, when Kono appears. The weight of her belly is throwing off her usual long stride, but her hands are in fists and her expression is like the wrath of God. Danny takes a strategic step to one side. 

"You," Kono says, pointing at him, "are going to let me talk to this guy. Because if you do not, I will either punch a wall or blow something up and I have to do something with these hormones, holy fuck."

"Uh," Danny says.

"Right now," Kono says. "While I still like you because you're the only person around here who didn't either knock me up or decide to mother hen me today. They tried to take away my _rifle_."

"You do what you gotta do," Danny says, because unlike some people he could name he has self-preservation instincts, thank you so much—there's no way in hell he's dumb enough to tell Kono that she should maybe reconsider being the one to take the difficult shots just because she's getting near to term. He sketches out a little half bow, gesturing towards the interrogation room door.

As soon as it swings shut behind her, he hustles to drag Steve to watch it through the two-way mirror. What unfolds is, in its own way, sort of beautiful. The drug runner's clearly terrified at the thought of mixing it up with a pregnant woman, and Kono's in no mood to be patronized. She has him singing inside of fifteen minutes: dates, times, suppliers, buyers, the works. He even offers to write the information down for her. Danny watches with approval. Forget any of the concerns Kono had about not doing right by her kid: if this is anything to go by, no child of Kono Kalakaua's will ever get away with not doing their homework, or refusing to eat their broccoli. 

Steve looks sort of choked up. "That's the mother of my child," he says in reverent tones.

Danny pats him on the arm and offers him a tissue.

**********

Jenna reads books with titles that are, frankly, terrifying: _Queer Parenting: Theory and Praxis. (Mis)Conceptions: Raising a Child in a Non-Traditional Home. "Who's Your Daddy Now?" A Lesbian's Guide to Surrogacy_. She offers to loan some of them to Danny, but he's still recovering from that birthing guide of Rachel's and anyway, he figures if he got through his whole _holy crap I want to do Steve more than a straight guy probably should_ freak-out without any assistance from the printed word, he can figure out their whole patchwork family thing without it, too. Still, the reading leaves Jenna really focused on gender roles and expectations, and she firmly vetoes any thoughts of a blue nursery or making the kid feel like he couldn't play with dolls if he wanted to. 

"No forced expressions of hyper-masculinity," she says, glaring at Steve.

"Hey!" Steve says, looking wounded and clutching the burp cloth in his hands. It says 'Future Navy Seal' in block capitals. "Military's bound to be integrated by the time the kid's old enough to enlist—it's not like Kono doesn't have the capability right now, anyway."

Jenna pokes him in the chest. "Do not give my heavily pregnant girlfriend any ideas, mister."

They end up painting the nursery a bright, apple green; the trim's a glossy white and there's a polka dot rug on the floor. Steve finds the crib his parents used for him and Mary in the attic of their house, and Kono's mom knits a blanket in wool so soft that Danny wants to bury his face in it. It takes them the full day to decorate it all, to move furniture around and to find a place for all the baby shower's offerings, and by the time they're done Danny's forearms are streaked with color like he's planning on celebrating Patrick's Day and his back aches and they've made a space in the world for the kid—the first place he'll think of as home. Looking around the room fills Danny with a sense of satisfaction that's more bone deep as any of his aches and pains. 

He and Jenna and Steve celebrate with beers, sitting around the living room while Kono eyes them enviously and calls them assholes. "The things I do for you, kiddo," she says to her swollen belly. "I hope you're grateful."

**********

Kono chooses to give birth at home. Given the Five-0's track record for bolting from hospital against medical advice, the only person who could advise her against that without sounding like a total hypocrite is Danny and hey, he's not going against the pregnant woman here. She knows her own body, and even if she can't run so fast any more, she's still a crack shot with a sniper rifle. Home birth it is. 

Malia arranges for the midwife—a tall, angular redhead called Sarah who has a ready smile and more freckles than Danny's seen on any other person, ever, and who manages the impressive feat of not only calming Kono down once the contractions start but also wrangling all the anxious people who are pacing holes in the living room floor. This is no mean task because it takes Kono sixteen hours to bring her son into the world, a length of time that she spends either walking around the house or squatting on the bedroom floor, leaning against Jenna.

Chin and Malia come and go during the labor—Malia's on call at the hospital and Chin's the only one manning the Five-0 right now—but Steve's a white-knuckled constant and where Steve goes, so goes Danny's nation. Where Jenna offers low, murmured words of encouragement, Steve attempts to cheer Kono up by offering tales of his top ten favorite firefights, or this one time he took down a Triad boss using his pinky finger. Kono's hair is damp with sweat and she's on all fours on the bed now; the dark blue comforter wrinkles beneath her fingers but she's smiling and answering Steve.

Jenna wrinkles her nose, brushes a strand of Kono's hair back behind her ear. "Is this really the first thing the baby should hear? Bloodshed and grenade launchers?"

"Eh," Danny says, "I'm sure he'll hear worse before he gets around to cutting his first tooth. Maybe if we start now, he'll be so jaded by the time he turns two that it won't be traumatic?"

He gets the last word in that particular discussion because right then Kono lets out a gut-deep wail and the midwife says the baby's crowning. The room is full of noise—the midwife's calm instructions and Kono's panting, Steve saying _you're doing good, you're doing so good, one last push_ and Jenna saying _I love you, I love you honey, c'mon_ —but Danny's lost for words. Just like with Grace, just like with Charlie, it feels like his heart's a heavy weight caught in his throat because he gets to watch a brand new life come into the world and nothing compares to this, nothing. Kono's frowning fiercely, turned inwards as she focuses on this incredible task, and Danny wills her on through the last few minutes, feels like he's in the crowds at Yankee Stadium, urging his team on during a triple play.

By the time the baby is out and drawing air into his lungs for his first, full-throated cries, Danny's chest aches and he rubs at it, feels battered with the force of emotions that are too complex for any simple name. Here's this kid who's the product of all these people that Danny loves, a little boy with a mop of dark hair and fiercely waving fists, and Danny has to hug a shaking Steve, has to pace up and down while the midwife checks the baby over and deals with the afterbirth.

There are tears running unchecked down Jenna's cheeks and Kono's face glows with sweat and endorphins; when her son is placed at her breast, her hand trembles when she places it gently on his back. Jenna sits on one side of her, pressing soft kisses to Kono's temple; Steve takes the other side. Danny perches on the edge of the mattress, grateful that Jenna and Kono had decided to splurge on a California King. There's a whole lot of family they need to accommodate here.

"Hey, baby boy," Kono murmurs. "It's nice to finally meet you."

"I don't… he's so _small_ ," Steve says. He looks about as stunned as Danny has ever seen him, save for a concussion. He rests the tips of his fingers against the soft, damp hair of the baby's head, his Adam's apple visibly working. "He…"

Marshaling his words is clearly too tall an order for Steve right now, so Danny takes pity on him and says softly, "We thought about a name yet?"

"We were thinking Keoni," Jenna says. "Keoni Kaye Kalakaua."

Steve makes a soft sound in the back of his throat.

"What?" Danny says. There's clearly something he's not getting here, because judging by the look on Steve's face, it's not the alliteration he's reacting to.

"John. Keoni's the Hawaiian for John," Steve says.

**********

Grace visits the new baby, along with Rachel, a couple of days after the birth. Rachel, bless her, has brought along a great stack of casserole dishes—and it's not like Mrs. Kalakaua's left her little girl's freezer unstocked, but Rachel brings lasagna and Danny's not ashamed to say that the carbohydrates of his people are a great help when it comes to dealing with a newborn and a postpartum Kono. 

While Rachel's in the bedroom, admiring the baby and swapping tales of battle scars with the moms, Danny gets Gracie a glass of juice and admires the card she brought for the new baby. The front of the card shows a scene that looks oddly like a nativity scene that's been blessed by the pineapple gods—a cluster of smiling, stick-limbed people surround a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. The background is full of palm trees, and a single wave with a surfboard and rider balanced on top. 

"And that's Uncle Steve," Grace explains, "and that's a penguin, and that's the baby, and there's the baby's mommies and that's you, Danno." 

"Oh, I see," Danny says, even though the only appreciable anatomical difference between him and the penguin is the coloring. "That's great, sweetie. So I'm Keoni's Danno too, huh?"

Grace turns and looks at him, with the look of withering disbelief on her face that can only be achieved by pre-teens. "No, don't be silly, you're _my_ Danno. You can't be his Danno, that's not how it works."

"Right," Danny says, "silly me," and doesn't know why that gives him a lump in his throat—why he has to wrap Grace up in a hug for a long moment while from the bedroom behind them comes the sound of Rachel and Kono's laughter.

**********

It's not Danny's first time out in this particular rodeo, so the diaper changes, the interrupted sleep, diagnosing ailments from the particular tenor of the kid's wail: all that, he can do no problem. Steve looks a little shell-shocked when he discovers the sheer amount of poop such a tiny baby can produce, but Danny is a maestro when it comes wielding the baby wipes. He has the additional advantage, this time around, of not being a parent with primary custody. Jenna and Kono get Keoni during the week, Steve and Danny have him weekends and a schedule of holidays so complicated that Danny'd almost swear Rachel's dick of a lawyer put it together. The kitchen acquires a giant whiteboard calendar on one wall, with multicolored markers used to keep track of their schedules, and Grace's, and Keoni's—Danny can pretty much guarantee that on weekends when they have both kids, sleep is out of the question, but barring some big case coming up, Tuesday through Thursday nights are usually nights when he can get his seven hours, Steve's soft snores in his ears a better sleeping aid than the TV ever was. 

Danny relearns how to walk up and down a room, bouncing a fretful baby gently until they fall asleep. Steve learns how to heat up bottles, testing drops of milks on the inside of his wrist with a weirdly focused expression on his face: it's like watching Steve the Science Guy check for C4 or something. He picks up the logistics of diaper changing pretty quickly, but even his speed is no match for an infant's bladder. Once, while over at Jenna and Kono's, Keoni chooses the moment right after Steve took the diaper off to pee right in his face. Jenna sees the whole thing and laughs so hard she gets the hiccups. Steve throws himself into it, seemingly incapable of not giving a hundred per cent to everything he does—and it's not like Danny neglects the baby, not at all, are you kidding; would never, not even if he was capable of resisting an infant combination of the Kalakaua brown eyes and the McGarrett grin. He knows what he's doing, even thinks he's figured out most of the why; it's the because that's causing him a little trouble, here.

See, the thing is, Steve's the kind of guy to have three or four boltholes across the island, fake passports and spare ammo laid up in case of need, so it comes as no surprise to Danny that their house is now an honorary branch of Babies R Us. Since he was tripping over stacks of diapers for weeks before the kid arrived, Danny can't even work up a snort when he sees that Steve takes to carrying Keoni around in a camo-colored Baby Bjorn sling. He does, however, sigh when he walks into the living room to find Steve standing there, Keoni strapped to his chest. For once, Steve's not doing anything. He's just standing there, eyes closed, perfectly still, and Danny has the strong feeling that he's surreptitiously sniffing the top of the baby's head.

Danny stops in the doorway, pretty sure that Steve hasn't noticed he's there—and that, that in itself is pretty telling. He leans in the doorway and watches the two of them. It's not that he's not glad to have the kid around—he does love the little guy, spit up and two a.m. feeds and all—but he knows himself well enough to know that he's still trying to work out how he fits into all of this. Kono and Jenna have primary custody and Steve's the biological dad, so where does that leave Danny? Does he even count as a step-dad? (Oh god, is he the _step-Dan_?) 

Not so deep down, he's afraid that it's going to end up like him and Charlie Edwards: looking in from the outside at a family that's almost his, wondering what might have been. And of course, the spectacularly shitty thing about it, the thing that really chafes, is that as muddled as it all is in his own head, he doesn't even have the luxury of being bitter about it. He can't be, okay, he can't, not after seeing the look on Steve's face when he got to hold his son for the first time; not watching Steve stand there with the same look on his face right now. Danny recognizes that look, knows it was the one the first time he saw his little girl. Steve looks lit up and destroyed all at once, and Danny knows why. Their whole world is different now.

**********

Kono heads back to work at the end of six weeks. There's a stack of paperwork on her desk—forms on closed cases to be filed, HPD internal memos to be read, reports on cases the Five-0 took on while she was on leave that will help catch her up on what she missed—but that's not what Kono heads for first. "Aww, I missed you too, baby," she says to her sniper rifle with what Danny thinks is way too much earnestness. 

"This," Danny says, leaning against the wall and sipping at his mug of coffee, watching her strip and clean the gun with practiced ease, "probably says something profoundly disturbing about the miracle of human reproduction and its consequences, you know that?"

Chin rolls his eyes, but hey, Danny's seen how he gets around the computer table—any moral high ground in this instance has to be a couple of hundred feet below sea level.

Kono shrugs. "You could always put it down to hormones, if you want. I haven't pumped yet this morning."

"I could," Danny says, pointing a finger at her, "I could do that, but then again I do not have a death wish, so no."

"I wouldn't shoot _you_ , Danny," Kono says, and dimples. It's a trick that actually works on him. God, Danny hopes the kid never learns that particular trick or premature baldness definitely awaits him. "Just glad to be back on the job."

"The kid settle in at daycare okay?" Danny asks. 

"Jenna has him this morning," Kono says, picking up a fresh rag to tackle a particularly stubborn bit of debris. "Her boss said she could work from home today, so Keoni'll start tomorrow."

"She's just making it harder on her," Chin says, looking up from whatever he's working on. "She's going to have to say goodbye to him for a few hours eventually. Might as well start now, when he's too young to know the difference."

"Yeah, I know," Kono says, starting to piece the rifle back together. "But that's why she's going to be the mom who worries about stuff, and I'm going to be the _cool_ mom."

"The cool mom with the sniper rifle," Danny says dryly.

Kono's grin is blinding. "Exactly."

**********

"You're not happy," Steve murmurs. The dawn light's only just starting to slant through the curtains and the two of them are sprawled across the bed, Danny's head resting on Steve's chest and the tips of Steve's fingers drawing lazy circles on the bare skin of Danny's shoulders. Danny's been waking up off and on all night and now his brain's decided sleep's no longer an option; apparently BUD/S training gives you some sort of weird psychic knowledge, because when Danny wakes so does Steve. 

"That, babe," Danny says, pressing a kiss to the nearest bit of Steve that he can reach, "is absolutely not the case."

"Well, something's up," Steve says. "You've got a tone."

Danny pushes himself up on his arms just enough to squint at Steve. "I've got a tone when I'm not talking now, huh?"

"You were thinking really loudly," Steve says, and yeah, he's got that innocent, earnest look on his face, the expression he normally only has when he's fucking with Danny, but there are lines around his eyes, deeper even than you'd expect from a guy who's got a new baby to cope with. 

Danny sighs, and scrubs at his hair, and looks to the ceiling for inspiration, and when Steve shows no sign of wanting to do anything other than listen to what Danny's got to say, the complete and utter bastard, Danny blurts out, "What's the kid going to call me, huh?"

Steve blinks up at him. 

"I mean, they've already decided that Jenna's going to be Mama and Kono's going to be Mom, aka the cool mom with the sniper rifle—"

Steve's forehead creases into a worried frown; Danny flaps a hand at him because seriously, this is not the issue to be focusing on at a time like this. 

"—and you're obviously going to be Dad, so what does that make me?"

Steve sits up now, white sheets pooling around his thighs. "Danny," he says slowly, "we've talked about this. You know that all of us… I mean, there's no one in this who doesn't think you're just as much a part of this as any of the rest of us. You get that, right? I only ever wanted to do this with you, not in spite of you."

"Yeah, well." Danny pokes Steve in the side. "You deciding what my relationship is to you as a parent, that's one thing, and you know I'd never do anything to let him down. But you can't decide how he's going to think about me, so—"

"Danny, if this was me talking to you, or Jenna. What would you say?" 

Danny sighs, thinking of Jenna asking him much the same thing; thinks of how easy it had been to reassure her when he'd thought he'd been just fine with things. And hey, it's not like he thinks anything he said wasn't true, but it's different when it's you dispensing advice to someone else. It's different when you're not keeping yourself awake nights, thinking about all the nasty things you've ever thought about Stan and how he doesn't really fit. "Don't go deciding to use logic on me, Steve, because—"

"What, people from Jersey can't take it?" Steve leans over and kisses him on the mouth, gentle and tender, before Danny can come up with the stinging riposte that a statement like that so clearly deserves. He grips Danny by the biceps, rests his forehead against Danny's, shakes him gently. " _Danny_."

"I'm not…" Danny's throat feels tight all of a sudden, like there's something huge there that he can't quite swallow around. "I don't regret any of it, you hear me, I just—"

"We're not going to leave you behind," Steve says, and his tone is fierce, determined. "Whatever word he comes up with for you, you'll be family. And I'm never going to let my family get left behind, okay?"

Danny closes his eyes, has a sudden flashback to what it felt like to stand in a park and aim his piece with shaking hands; what it felt like to watch Stan nod, and accept it, because it was for Grace. Maybe he has a brand new lesson to learn, from someone who can be a teacher even if he can never be a friend. "Okay," he says, and wraps his arms around Steve, holds on.

**********

Danny always knew that his little girl was going to be perfect, right from the moment he fell in love with a grainy ultrasound image. He got his first real proof ten days after she was born, when he realized that Grace would only fall asleep if Danny carried her around the house, softly singing the greatest hits of Mr John Francis Bongiovi, Jr to her. Rachel soon got tired of hearing encores of "Livin' on a Prayer" and "Keep the Faith", but Grace loved it—she'd curl her little hand (jeez, so tiny) around his thumb and nestle down into his arms like there's nowhere else she'd want to be. 

Keoni turns out to be a little bit more of a challenge. By all accounts, he goes out like a light for his moms, sleeping through the night at a ridiculously early point, but no such luck the weekends he spends with Steve and Danny. He cries and whimpers, and Danny's seen Steve put up with a lot of things, power through situations with injuries that would take down anyone else, but apparently being dragged out of bed at four in the morning for the third night in a row by a screaming baby is enough to break even the hardiest of SEALs. 

Danny staggers up and out of their bed (and god, he thought it had been tough with Gracie, but he wishes he had the stamina of a twentysomething now) to find Steve stooped over the crib. 

"Hey, little man," he's saying. There's a raw edge of desperation to his voice, the kind that Danny normally associates with cases that have gone FUBAR. "C'mon, buddy, it's time for sleep, huh? I've fed you and you've got a clean diaper and I only want to live through Hell Week once, okay?"

It takes Steve a while to notice that Danny is standing in the doorway, which is how Danny knows it's bad—normally Steve's got hearing like some kind of weird Hawaiian bat. A weird, tattooed Hawaiian bat who likes to take off his shirt in public more than is strictly... yeah, it's possible that Danny's a little sleep-deprived too. He clears his throat. 

"Danny," Steve says, looking up at him with desperation. "He won't sleep. He _won't sleep_. What do I do?"

And standing there looking at him—at this man he loves, standing there in a ratty pair of boxers and an old t-shirt of Danny's that's too big in the shoulders and too short in the torso, unshaven and bleary-eyed and still looking at Danny like he has faith that Danny will know what to do—Danny has a moment of inspiration. He crosses the room and scoops Keoni up out of the crib. 

Keoni blinks up at him with big brown eyes, shocked for a moment out of his tears. He recovers quickly, though, drawing breath for a renewed bout—but before he can say anything, Danny starts to sing. 

Steve watches, slack-jawed, as Danny sings, "One more lonely night for me, I looked up what did I see? Sexy eyes! Sexy eyes, something something, la la la." He can't remember most of the words, makes up his own as he goes, but Keoni clearly doesn't care—he stares up at Danny, enraptured and silent. Like father, like son, it looks like, and Danny bounces Keoni up and down gently in his arms as he walks around and around the little nursery until the kid's eyes finally start to droop. 

Danny lowers his voice, still singing softly until Keoni's finally deep asleep. He looks up when Steve wraps his arms around the two of them. There are dark circles under Steve's eyes, but he's smiling, and the kiss that he presses to Danny's temple is lingering and gentle. 

"Miracle worker," Steve mumbles, his stubble scratching against the soft skin of Danny's cheeks. 

"Well, babe," Danny says, "I _do_ have sexy eyes," and the low sound of Steve's laughter warms him right through.

**********

Danny's desk can get a little messy, right, because that sort of organization's never been his strong suit, and no matter how many times Chin points out that a digitized workflow would be easier, Danny prefers good old pen and paper. Less chance of him messing up with one of his goofy thumbs and losing three hours’ work that way. He averages eight to twelve days paperwork on his desk, stacked in haphazard piles, sandwiched between notes he scribbles down for himself on yellow legal pads when inspiration strikes about a case, reminders to call back this DA or that contact. There's always at least three empty coffee mugs ranged around his computer monitor and stale breadcrumbs strewn across the keyboard; a spare tie looped around the handle of his desk drawer for days when he needs to head down to the courthouse in a hurry. 

Still, there's one part of his desk that's always kept clutter-free and spotless: the space that holds the little hand-painted clay police car Grace gave him one birthday; the framed Father's Day card; the picture of Grace on her fifth birthday, beaming and clutching the doll her Nana Silsbury had sent all the way from England. Then there's the set of pictures in one of those frames that holds four photos at once, all taken at Grace's last birthday party: Chin's face caught in an expression of comical mock surprise while a giggling Grace buries him in the sand; Jenna, silhouetted against the setting sun, holding Keoni in her arms and pointing out at the horizon; Steve and Kono in the aftermath of their cake-eating competition, Kono holding up her arms in triumph while Steve licks the last of the butter-cream from his fingers. 

The middle picture, the largest one, is a shot of Steve dozing on the sofa out on the lanai, Keoni nestled on his chest. Grace took it, so it's not quite in focus and it’s a little off-kilter, but you can still see that the fingers of Steve's left hand are interlaced with Danny's and that in the background, Jenna's pausing on the way to the table with a bowl of potato salad in her hand while she presses a kiss to Kono's cheek. It's an absolutely mundane moment, the kind of day-to-day thing that Danny wants to always have right in front of him. 

It's not that they've come up with some magical formula to make things work without effort, it's not that there aren't times when Danny gets frustrated with seemingly no longer owning a single shirt not spattered with baby vomit, or when trying to get four parents to agree on something turns into an exercise in eye rolling and raised voices. But no matter what you call it, family makes it worth it—and hey, Danny's had a lot of practice in coming up with new definitions of the things that count since he came here, since he first moved home.

**Author's Note:**

> Steve's story about the pantyhose in Afghanistan really happened, though not necessarily to Navy SEALs and obviously not to Steve McGarrett. See Seth G. Jones, _In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan_ (2010), p. 92.


End file.
